Order and Love
by Goodbye GoatHill
Summary: All Wallander wanted was a decent lunch. He got an angry man with a gun instead. T for language; more or less BBC 'verse, with maybe a touch of Krister Henriksson. Characters: Wallander, Martinsson, O/C. Yes, I realize my chapters vary wildly in length. All finished (can I still plead for reviews?). Standard disclaimers apply.
1. Chapter 1

All Kurt Wallander wanted was to eat lunch. He was caught up on his paperwork for once, and, since the spring weather was actually pleasant, he decided to park his car and walk downtown. As he walked, he blinked at the sun and tried to talk himself into having a salad instead of another greasy hamburger. As he was looking at the menu posted in front of a new restaurant, he noticed movement in the window. He looked up to see the reflection of several people running out of the bar across the street; as he turned to see firsthand what was happening, he heard a gunshot. He broke into a run as more people poured out of the bar. He glanced through the window; he could see a man inside, short-haired and muscular, pointing a gun towards the ceiling. The bits of plaster on his shoulder and the floor told Wallander that no one was hurt; the man had only fired a warning shot. Wallander ducked into the door and crept around the bar; crouching, he motioned to a frightened woman to run for the door. The man with the gun was shouting in… German? No, it was English, American English, but he was so angry that Wallander couldn't make out what he was saying. He reached to the small of his back for his gun, only to find that he'd left it locked in his desk back at the Police Station. _Shit_. Wallander shook his head, and peered around the bar at the gunman. He seemed to favor his right leg, which told Wallander where to hit. _I'm too old for this crap_, he thought, as he put his head down and rushed at the gunman. Wallander grunted with satisfaction when his strategy worked; he knocked the gunman over, grabbed the weapon, and held it on him while fumbling for his cell phone. "Wallander here. I need someone to come pick up a drunk… Yeah, I know it's early… on Lingsgatan, yes. Thanks." _That's what I get for trying to eat a decent lunch for a change_.

He focused his attention on the gunman, who seemed calmer now. Wallander asked him, "So, what do you think you're up to, shooting up a bar on such a nice Thursday?"

All he got in return was a blank stare; he remembered that the man had been shouting in English, so he repeated his question as well as he could in English. This time the gunman's eyes flickered – he understood what was said to him – but he made no reply. Wallander nodded. That was fine with him. He didn't want to have a long conversation with this lunatic anyway. The uniformed officers were quick; they arrived at that moment and took the gunman to the car out front. Wallander followed, gesturing to the younger of the two, a woman – _They're all so young_ – "This is his gun. He only shot a hole in the ceiling, I think, but we'd better check it out. Also, I think he's American, so … do you speak English?"

"I do, sir," replied the eager young officer.

"Good, then, you can explain things to him." He watched the marked car pull away, then trudged back to his own car. No lunch today after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Wallander returned to find his desk piled with messages. He flipped through them, and went to find some coffee to make up for the missed meal. He returned to the office to find the eager young officer waiting for him. He gestured, indicating that she should speak, and dropped into his chair. She already had a report, which she placed on his desk as she spoke:

"He is an American, and his name is Michael Schober. It looks like he recently got out of the Army – the gun is US Army – and he is apparently visiting some relative here in Sweden."

She put the gunman's wallet on the desk in front of Wallander, who leaned forward to look at it. "OK. Has he spoken at all? Did he say why he did this, or is this just what he does when he's been drinking?"

"He asked for his aunt. That's all he said. 'Call my aunt.'"

"Well, then, let's call the aunt. What's her number?"

The officer bent over the desk and pulled a business card out of the wallet. "That's the aunt. And, sir? He hasn't been drinking. He's completely sober. We tested him twice."

Wallander raised his eyebrows. He hadn't expected that. "All right, I'll call this …" he peered at the card… "Kalle Vogel. K-e-l-l-y? That's an odd spelling, though. Are you sure he said aunt and not uncle?"

The young officer shrugged and returned to her duties. Wallander shrugged, too, and picked up the phone. The business card was from the University at Lund; Dr. Vogel – until he figured out whether it was an aunt or an uncle, Doctor seemed safe - was evidently a history professor. A cell phone number was handwritten on the back, so he tried that first. A woman answered.

"Hello? Um... Dr. Kalle Vogel?"

"This is Dr. Kelly Vogel." She stressed the last syllable of her first name just enough that he could hear the correct pronunciation.

"Sorry. This is Kurt Wallander, calling from the police department in Ystad. We have someone here who claims to be your nephew. Do you know a Michael Schober?"

"Yes, that's my nephew. He's visiting from the States. What's he doing in Ystad?"

"Well, we're not completely sure, to be honest. We've arrested him, and I think it would be best if you came in to help us sort things out."

"Is he hurt? Is anyone else hurt?"

"No, nobody was hurt, but he did fire a gun inside a bar."

He heard Dr. Vogel sigh. "I'll be there as soon as I can. I'm coming from Lund, and I need to make a stop, so it will take me a little while to get to Ystad."

Wallander looked at his watch. "That's OK, I'll be here for a while."

"So I should ask for you when I get there? Kurt Wallander?"

"Yes, that's fine, ask for me," he nodded as he rang off.


	3. Chapter 3

About two hours later, Kurt broke off his argument with Martinsson and returned to his office. They'd been arguing about how many witness statements were necessary in case like this one. Wallander knew that the prosecutor would scold them for shoddy work if they didn't get as many witnesses as possible; Martinsson thought that was irrelevant, since it wasn't a major case and Wallander himself had been at the scene. Wallander was still grumbling to himself when he returned to his office, so he didn't immediately notice the woman sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs facing his desk. She stood to greet him; he ran his left hand through his hair as he put out his right hand. She shook it firmly, saying, "I'm Dr. Kelly Vogel. I hope my nephew hasn't caused you too much trouble." Her tone was mild, calm, as though the gunman were a boy who had gotten in trouble at school.

Wallander stood behind his desk and gestured at her chair; they both sat simultaneously.

Dr. Vogel was clearly accustomed to being in control of a situation. "I think it would be best if you could tell me what happened, then I can tell you what I know, and then perhaps I could see my nephew and talk to him."

Wallander nodded, all the while sizing her up. Her Swedish was flawless; she spoke without any regional accent, not even an American accent - she talked like a book. She looked like he would have expected a history professor to look; she wore slacks and a mannish tweed jacket and a colorful scarf; her dark hair was pulled up into a neat bun; her eyes were sharp and he could only imagine what she was thinking about him. He adjusted his jacket and brushed his shirtfront, nodding in agreement. He proceeded to tell her everything that had happened at the bar and what they'd found out about Michael Schober since. She asked a few questions, but mostly let him tell his story.

Finally it was her turn to speak. "Wait a minute," Wallander broke in. He went to the door and called into the next room for Martinsson. "You should hear this."

He introduced Martinsson and Dr. Vogel to one another, and Martinsson sat next to Dr. Vogel. She was direct. "Michael is my nephew – my youngest sister's son – and when he finished high school he signed up with the Army. He did three tours in Afghanistan" - Wallander raised his eyebrows and exchanged glances with Martinsson at this -"and received a medical discharge."

"Medical?" Wallander asked.

"Yes, he lost his right leg. IED. You didn't notice his prosthesis?" Wallander looked at Martinsson again. "Well, he's been home for a few months now, and has gotten into a lot of trouble. The family thought it would do him some good to come visit me. It's quiet, and far from his troublemaking friends." She paused. "It sounds like he's managed to make some trouble on his own, though. Is this likely to go to court?"

Martinsson responded to her question. "We've been trying to figure that out. The prosecutor makes the decision, of course, and this wouldn't be such a big problem if your nephew hadn't discharged his weapon. Right now, we think it best to hold him."

She nodded at Martinsson, then looked at Wallander. "Has he had a psychiatric evaluation?" Wallander shrugged and looked at Martinsson; Martinsson shook his head. "That might be appropriate," she said. "There's no good reason for him to have done this."

Both men nodded in agreement. "Can I speak with him now?" she asked.

Wallander stood up. "Yes, of course. Maybe we could listen?" As they walked to the interview room, he explained the arrangement. Martinsson, whose English was better, would join him behind the one-way mirror, and Dr. Vogel would talk with her nephew in the interview room.

Wallander showed her to the door; she paused to look at Wallander. "Thank you for your help. And thank you for not hurting him this afternoon." He tilted his head as if to brush aside her gratitude.

She took a deep breath, then pushed the door in front of her and strode into the room. "Michael Schober. What have you gotten yourself into?"

The gunman, who had been sullen and silent up until now, stood. "Aunt Kelly! I'm so glad to see you! Are you going to get me out of here?"

She hugged him briefly, then took her seat opposite him. He dropped stiffly back into his chair. She shook her head, again reminding Wallander of a disapproving parent whose child has been mischievous at school. "Mike, you're in a lot of trouble here. These people don't care that you're a Vogel – they're not going to let you off easy because of Uncle Jim."

Wallander and Martinsson exchanged glances – her English was quick and casual, as opposed to the formal precision of her Swedish – and Martinsson gestured. Wallander shook his head. Translation wouldn't tell him who Uncle Jim was.

"But it's my gun, I have a license."

"You're being irrational. A gun license in Pennsylvania is not a gun license in Sweden. And even back home, you'd have trouble if you shot a hole in the ceiling at Sully's."

"Nah, I did that once. They just sent me home." He shook his head, as though he was disappointed at having gotten off so easily before.

She tried another approach. "You know, it took me a few minutes to figure out how you'd managed to bring the bullets with you, but then I went through your things after Detective Wallander called me…"

"You went through my things?"

"Look, Mikey, you get locked up in jail, I get to go through your things. At any rate, I noticed your better prosthesis – the smaller, lighter one – was still in your duffle. That's when I figured it out."

He smiled. "You always were my smartest Auntie."

"Don't give me that nonsense," Dr. Vogel replied. "The Swedes could probably prosecute you as an arms smuggler, if they felt so inclined."

Martinsson and Wallander exchanged confused glances.

"Take it off," she continued.

"What? You're asking a wounded veteran to take off his prosthetic limb?"

"I want to know what else you've got in there."

He shrugged, and bent over to unstrap the clumsy prosthesis below his knee. "The cops never looked at it, you know. I don't know if it's because everyone here is just so damn nice or because cops everywhere are just so damn stupid, but they never checked. The TSA never checked either. They just said 'thank you for your service' and waived me through. But we Vogels are devious. You're devious too, Aunt Kelly."

He laid the leg on the table between them; she silently picked it up and shook out the contents of the hollow section. Wallander was shaking his head –bullets in a hollow leg! it was like something out of an old detective movie – as Mike kept talking. "You're devious too. You're trying to get me to talk for the cops behind the mirror. What do they want me to say?"

Wallander got Martinsson's attention. "_Devious_?" Martinsson tossed back the Swedish word; Wallander nodded, enjoying the new word. "_Devious_."

Dr. Vogel sorted through the loose ammunition and the small, sturdy knife on the table. "They – and I – want to know why you did it."

"I thought you would have figured that out already. C'mon. You already said that at home they'd let me go, and that the folks here don't take kindly to people shooting up their bars."

She looked up at him, "Mike, no. It's not that bad. Don't make some poor cop do that to you."

"You're always on the side of the cops, aren't you? You and your precious Uncle Jim. What do you know? It is that bad. No one at home understands, and the VA just gives me more drugs." He became agitated; behind the glass, Martinsson and Wallander straightened up; Wallander was beginning to worry that it had been a mistake to send a civilian in to interview a suspect alone. Before either of them could move, Mike grabbed the knife and his aunt and started shouting at the one-way mirror. "It is that bad! Go ahead, stop me! Are the cops in Sweden all pussies?"

He had the knife in his right hand, with his left arm hooked around her neck. Kelly Vogel also began to shout, in Swedish, "Don't hurt him! That's what he wants!"

Martinsson had bolted from the observation room and was fumbling with the doorknob on the interview room, so he didn't see what Wallander saw; Kelly Vogel elbowed her nephew hard, then hooked her foot around his remaining leg and pulled it out from underneath him. He landed flat on his back, and she came down next to him. The knife skittered across the floor, and Martinsson entered in time to pick it up. Wallander ran his hands through his hair and watched the historian with relief and admiration. She was sitting next to her nephew, who was crying now. Her bun had come unpinned and her hair fell around her face as she tried to comfort the young man who had just threatened her life. Wallander entered the interview room and helped her up, then led her back to his office, leaving Martinsson to take care of the nephew.

She was silent for a moment, then shook out her hair and repinned it. Wallander found himself wishing she would leave it down. Finally, she broke the silence. "Thank you for letting me speak to him."

"You did a good job. You would make a good police officer."

She smiled at that. "I just had information that you didn't, so it was easier for me to find out what I needed to know."

"Speaking of information, who is Uncle Jim? You both mentioned him."

She spoke quietly. "Jim is… was… my older brother. He was a police officer. One day, a kid showed up at the local high school with a gun." Wallander furrowed his brow. He could guess where this story was going. "Jim was there to drop off his daughter, so he heard the noise and ran into the cafeteria. He knocked the kid to the ground, but not before the kid shot him. So he's a bit of a local hero back home, from what I hear. I haven't been home since the funeral."

Wallander nodded, and patted her on the arm. She looked at his hand on her arm. "Thank you, Detective Wallander."

"Stop thanking me so much, and, please, call me Kurt."

She patted his hand. "I'm Kelly."

"Yes. I was confused at first. I thought it was a misspelling of Kalle."

She smiled that small smile. "I hear that a lot. Kelly is an Irish name – for men or women, actually. It means 'brave warrior,' though I've never had a chance to try that out."

He gestured that they should sit; instead of sitting behind his desk, he sat beside her this time. "What did you mean when you said he wanted us to hurt him?... Your nephew, I mean."

"That's why he did this. He wants to die, and he thinks that he can provoke the police into shooting him. The police at home all know him – because of my brother – so they all protect him. I guess he was hoping you wouldn't be so restrained."

"Well, Martinsson will take care of him now. He'll have a cell all to himself and he'll get that psychiatric evaluation. I expect to see the prosecutor tomorrow morning, and after that we will decide what to do next."

"So that's all until tomorrow?"

Wallander nodded.

"Would it be all right if I came back tomorrow to meet with the prosecutor?" Wallander began to shake his head; she interrupted him before he could go on. "Look, if Mike is going to be prosecuted, he's going to need me to explain things to him; I'm going to have to contact the Embassy. I'll probably have to talk to the Army. At the very least, I'll need to be able to provide a detailed explanation of all of this to my sister."

Wallander relented. She had a point, but it was unusual for the accused's family members to participate in the prosecution. "I need to meet with the prosecutor first; maybe she can make some time for you after that."

"What time would that be?"

"I can call you."

Dr. Vogel looked at her watch. "Well, I guess it would be best if I found someplace to stay here in Ystad. My place is pretty far out in the country, and it sounds like it would be best if I were nearby."

Wallander nodded. "That would be sensible." He looked at his watch. "Would you care to join me for dinner, then, if you're staying in town?"

For the first time that day, Kelly Vogel looked surprised. Wallander was pleased with himself. She asked, "Would that be appropriate, considering …" She gestured.

Wallander insisted. "I'm not meddling with a case; I'm entertaining an out-of-town guest, a respected professor from the University at Lund. It's good public relations."

She smiled. "Very well, if you insist, we will have dinner."


	4. Chapter 4

Wallander took her to the restaurant he'd looked at that morning. It seemed healthy and pretty and like the kind of place Linda would approve of. They ordered, and Wallander filled both their wineglasses. "So, what do you teach at Lund?"

She laughed. "You're not really interested."

"Why not? I'm curious. An American teaching history at a university in Sweden -is there a lot of demand for American history here?"

"All right. I don't teach American history. I teach the history of science; my specialty is Linnaeus."

"The guy with the plants?" Wallander was surprised.

"That's my man."

"How did you get interested in Linnaeus?"

She continued. "Latin. In high school Latin, I was looking for something to study that wasn't Roman or Ecclesiastical, so I turned to the scientists – Linnaeus, Newton, those boys. Around the same time, I had an American literature teacher who had us read a lot of Jefferson. It all came together for me. But Linnaeus will always be my first love." She smiled, and took a sip of wine. "I taught myself Swedish out of an old textbook when I was in high school. I studied botany and history in college, and I did a semester abroad at Uppsala."

"That's some competition for your husband," Wallander pointed out.

She laughed out loud at that. "Please, Kurt, that's so obvious a ploy, I'm not even going to respond. Besides, it's not like you haven't noticed that I don't wear a ring." She hesitated before continuing. "I'm fine. I like the quiet, I like the order. I drive into Lund, I teach my classes, I go to faculty meetings, I meet with students. I drive back to my little farm, I tend my plants, work on my translations and my papers. On sunny days, I go fishing. I'm sure it sounds terribly dull to you."

Wallander smiled and shrugged. "It does, a little. Don't you ever wish for a change?"

"Well, this is a change." She smiled back. Their food arrived, and she took advantage of the moment to change the subject. "So, tell me, why the police?"

Wallander grimaced. "Ehh… Call it an overdeveloped sense of justice."

Kelly nodded and refilled his wineglass for him. "And how long have you been at it?"

He glanced away.

"All right, sorry. That was out of bounds. Why do you keep at it? I stick with my boring old scientists out of love. I don't love them, exactly; they love the same things I do – reason and order."

Wallander smiled as she made amends. "It's the same for me, then." He lifted his glass, and she lifted hers.

"Order." he said.

"Love," she said. They ate for a while, companionably, quietly, commenting on the dishes.

"Tell me more about Jim. Did he teach you that move back there?"

She was confused at first. "Oh, yes, that. He certainly did. It's especially effective with one-legged opponents."

Wallander chuckled. "I was impressed, anyway."

She shook her head. "Jim was my big brother. He always protected me. When we were young, we had a… um… bad uncle, and Jim kept me safe. He persuaded my mother to send me to live with my Aunt in Philadelphia, and she's the one who sent me to private schools where I could read Linnaeus in Latin. I owe my whole island of peace and order to my brother."

"You must miss him."

"Of course I do. People never expect the siblings to mourn much. Parents, spouses, children – their loss is obvious. But when you lose a sibling, it's like your whole childhood become a shade paler. Everything – good or bad, everything – recedes from view." she paused and gazed over Wallander's shoulder for a moment before her eyes flickered back to meet his. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to become maudlin. I don't think I've ever said that to another living soul. You must be a very good policeman."

Wallander shrugged, and refilled her wineglass. He felt like he owed her something. "My father has Alzheimer's. He has his good days and his bad days, but sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. He never approved of my joining the police, and he never hesitated to let me know that."

"Is he afraid to lose you?"

Wallander tilted his head. "I never thought of that. He won't say why he disapproves. He may no longer know."

"It bothers you that he doesn't approve."

"Of course it does!" Wallander spoke too loudly for the quiet restaurant; he repeated himself more quietly. "Of course it does. Doesn't everyone want his parents' approval?"

Kelly smiled a wistful smile.

"Why does that make you smile?"

"It's nice to hear a man tell you – not in so many words, of course, but tell you nonetheless – that he and his father love each other."

"When did I say that?"

"He cares enough about you to form a strong opinion about your life, and to tell you about it, over and over, apparently. And you care enough about him that you keep going back to hear him say it."

Kurt leaned back in his chair and gazed at her. She was right, of course; that she saw it so easily amazed him. The waiter interrupted at that point to offer them dessert; both shook their heads. The waiter went away to get the check.

"Well," Kelly said, "should I drive you home?" She pulled her purse onto her lap to fish for her keys.

Kurt was surprised at that; he'd thought the evening had been pleasant, but this seemed a bit aggressive.

She caught the look in his eye and blushed. "Oh, my, I … it's just that I only had two glasses of wine, and the bottle's empty; you had the rest. I didn't mean to suggest anything else."

He hadn't noticed how much he'd drunk until she mentioned it. He thought for a moment, then nodded. He thought for another moment, then said, "Kelly, after this is all over, maybe we could see each other again."

"We'll see each other tomorrow," she said, a shade too brightly. She closed the purse and looked up at him, and her sharp eyes softened. "Maybe. I think I'd like that."

Kurt noticed that there was still a little bit of wine left in their glasses. He lifted his. "To love."

Kelly's eyes glinted. "To order."


	5. Chapter 5

Kurt called Kelly at around 10:00 the next morning. She had been up for hours, and had already met with the psychiatrist and visited her nephew at the hospital. She was quick to arrive at the police station, and Kurt handed her off to the prosecutor, some new guy, filling in for a few weeks. Kurt didn't particularly like him, so he hadn't bothered to learn his name. Anders, maybe. The meeting was surprisingly short; fifteen minutes later, the prosecutor was leaning in his doorway. "Interesting woman, the American."

Kurt nodded. "She thinks like a police officer."

"Really? I would have said she thinks like a lawyer. If she were a bit younger, I'd even consider giving her a chance. Anyway, after his 72-hour psychiatric stay, Schober's going back to Vogel's place."

Kurt looked up from his papers. "Is that a good idea?"

The prosecutor – Andres? - shrugged. "We just need to know where he is until the deportation papers come through. He'll have an ankle monitor, and she will take him with her when she goes to the university next week. You can send someone over to check out her place, make sure it'll be safe."

Kurt stood up and looked out the window. He could see Kelly in the parking lot below, leaning against her car and talking rapidly into her cell phone. _Probably explaining all this to her sister_. "I'll send someone."

"She said something about being at the university the rest of the day, so the evening would be better."

Kurt turned around. "I'll take care of it. I'll take Martinsson with me."


	6. Chapter 6

Wallander and Martinsson arrived at Kelly's little farm outside of Lund later that evening. It was picturesque; a small house and barn, with a hayfield stretching back to a tree-lined stream. She walked them through the house: a tidy kitchen, two bedrooms, a large open room with a fireplace and couch at one end and a wall of books and a desk at the other end. They saw the barn next; most of it was taken up by a carefully-lit assortment of plants. Kelly explained, "My little botanical garden. It's too cold outside for most of these plants to do well."

Kurt looked over the plants. He stopped at one he'd never seen before.

Kelly explained, "_Persea Americana_. Avocado."

"What do you do with it?"

She smiled. "You eat the fruit." Kurt looked more closely at the bright green, rocklike fruit, and Kelly explained further, "You cut it open and eat the inside. It's delicious, and very healthy. It's a very sensitive plant, though, and this one is still rather young."

"And what's this?" Kurt asked, gesturing towards the easy chair and small stereo in the corner.

"The plants like Bach. I come out a few afternoons a week, we spend some time together. Opera on Sunday afternoons." Kurt was moved by the thought of her out in the barn, alone with her books and plants.

Martinsson had been looking at the toolbench; he interrupted them. "Kurt!" He had a rifle in his hand. Kurt turned to look at Kelly.

"It's a .22. It's registered, and I keep the shells locked in a safe."

"Why do you have a shotgun?"

Kelly shrugged. "It's a farm. It was actually here in the barn when I bought the place. It's good for scaring rabbits away from the vegetable patch."

"You shoot rabbits?" Kurt was surprised.

"I try to miss."

Martinsson was turning the weapon in his hand. "It's old, but it seems to be in good condition. I don't think we should leave it here if Schober is going to stay on the premises."

Kelly nodded. "Do you want the shells too?"

Kurt was going to demur, but Martinsson was quicker. "Better safe than sorry."

Kelly gestured to the men, and they followed her back to the house and into her bedroom, where she crouched down and pulled a small safe out from under the bed. She set it on the bed, unlocked it, and opened it. "You'll probably want this gun too."

Kurt's eyes widened. "A Beretta 92?"

Kelly stood up and gestured to the open box. "It was Jim's. I've registered it, and I keep it locked up."

Martinsson put the shotgun down on the dresser and reached for the Beretta. "Nice gun," he said.

Kelly nodded. "I guess so. I've never fired it. It's … sentimental."

Martinsson looked over the weapon, and glanced into the open safe at the boxes of ammunition. "You only have shotgun shells."

"Like I said, I never use the Beretta."

Martinsson gathered up the weapons and ammunition. "I'll come back with a receipt for all of this."

Kurt stayed. He looked into the safe and saw a familiar-looking black leather wallet. He opened it to find a policeman's badge and a faded ID card, all in English, but not too different from his own. He looked up to find Kelly gazing steadily at him. "Shouldn't his widow have these?"

Kelly explained. "When he died, she blamed the job. She didn't understand him. He didn't stop that kid because it was his job; he took the job because he was the kind of person who would have stopped that kid anyway."

He looked back at the ID card, then took her hand and put the ID case in it, closing her fingers over it. He patted her hand gently. "Order and love, hm?"

She nodded, but didn't speak.

"I'm sorry that we have to take your... Jim's…"

Kelly shook her head. "It's all right. I understand why you're doing it. I will get it back once Mike goes home?"

Kurt nodded. "We're just trying to keep you safe."

She tucked the ID back in the lockbox, closed it, and put it under the bed, pausing to smooth out the covers. When she met his eyes this time, she was composed. "Dinner?"


	7. Chapter 7

Martinsson bounded into the house, calling, "Kurt, I need your signature on these receipts for Dr. Vogel, then we can…"

He stopped when he found them in the kitchen; Kurt was setting the table and Kelly was stirring something on the stove. The domesticity of the scene amused him: "And… it's just like coming home from school and finding your parents preparing dinner for you."

Kurt and Kelly turned to face him. "Parents?" Kurt raised an eyebrow. _Am I that old?_

Kelly was wiping her hand on a dishtowel. "Exactly how old do you think I am, Detective Martinsson?"

Martinsson did not know how to answer that, and he glanced between Kelly's bemused face and the warning in Kurt's eye for a clue. "Ah… please, call me Magnus, Dr. Vogel."

She folded the towel neatly and laid it over her shoulder. "And I'd be happy for you to call me Kelly, Magnus. Is politeness your usual stall tactic with older women?"

Kurt actually chuckled at that; Magnus knew he wasn't going to get any help from his colleague. "It's not that… it's just that everything's so homey and comfortable in here," he stammered.

"Good answer, Magnus. Now, if your homework is finished, you can toss the salad. You've got a smart boy there, Kurt." Kelly flicked the towel in Martinsson's direction before turning back to the stove.

Dinner was pleasant. Kurt let Kelly and Magnus carry on most of the conversation; he threw in a comment here and there, but mostly he just enjoyed listening to them. Magnus was trying to impress Kelly by telling her exciting police stories, and she was alternately impressed and bemused. He liked watching her; how she would sometimes duck behind her long dark hair and smile to herself; how she made sure that they had enough to eat; how she called all the vegetables by their Latin names. At one point, he finally broke into the conversation: "I have a question: Why do you always wear your hair up when you leave the house? You seem so much more comfortable like this."

Kelly looked at him for a moment. "There are 20, maybe 25 faculty in my department, right? It's a pretty big program. Do you know how many of them are women?"

Kurt and Magnus shook their heads, and Karen held up her hand to show five fingers. Kurt raised his eyebrows; even as a policeman, he could hardly imagine such an imbalanced workplace. Kelly continued. "We have about 12 graduate faculty—people who work advise graduate students, oversee dissertations, teach the more prestigious classes – and I am the only woman among them. If I wear my hair down, that draws attention to my femininity, and that marks me as different and threatening. If I cut my hair short, I'm trying to be a man, and that's threatening too. If I were young and pretty, they could feel paternalistic about me; if I were married with children, they could accept my academic career as secondary to my womanly duties. But I'm middle-aged and unmarried, so it's possible that I take my career as seriously as they take theirs, and that's unladylike." She saw that her lecture had stunned them a bit, so she tried to lighten the mood. "It's silly, really. Hair down," and she tossed her hair, "I'm a temptress; hair up," and she twisted it into a quick bun, poking a pen into it to hold in place, "and I'm a respectable colleague." The pen slipped in her hair, and a few locks fell loose.

Magnus pointed them out. "The loose bun is also very sexy."

Kurt glared at him; Kelly froze momentarily, then collected herself. "Why, thank you. I'll keep that in mind."

Magnus noticed Kurt's glare, and decided not to back off. "Kurt, wouldn't you agree?"

Kurt continued to glare at Magnus, sparing a glance for Kelly, whose eyes were on the table now. "I'm not really in a position to say."

Magnus prodded, "It's not a difficult question."

Kurt sighed heavily. "All right. I'm not saying Magnus is wrong, but I like your hair better when you wear it down. It seems more natural. OK, Magnus?"

Kelly smiled gratefully at him and pulled out the pen so that her hair fell around her face. "You both are just proving my point, by the way." She gathered a few empty plates and stood up. "Coffee?"

Kurt stirred himself to help clear the table, and she patted his shoulder to indicate that he should sit. He settled back down; at that moment, Martinsson's phone rang. He stepped out of the room to take it. Kelly spoke quietly. "Don't be too hard on him, Kurt. He's just a pup."

Kurt smiled, and patted her hand on his shoulder, wondering if he could find a way to send Magnus back to Ystad alone.

Martinsson leaned in the doorway and wiggled his phone. "Kurt?"

Kurt stood and looked at Kelly. All he could do was sigh and shake his head.

Martinsson caught the look between them; he tried to catch Kurt's eye a few minutes later in the car. "That was nice, wasn't it?"

Kurt nodded, then closed down the conversation. "So, where are we going now?"


	8. Chapter 8

The days passed; Kurt was aware that Kelly had collected her nephew from the hospital and returned to the farm with him. He wasn't sure about how to approach her, especially with Schober at home, so he allowed himself to be busy.

On Tuesday afternoon, as he and Martinsson were dividing up the last of a pot of coffee, he got a phone call. Martinsson started to back away to give him privacy, but Wallander held up one finger. He spoke quickly, then hung up. "You're going with me. There's a shooter on campus at the University in Lund." Wallander ducked back into his office to grab his gun from its drawer, and the two men left.

Normally, it took over an hour to get from Ystad to Lund, but Wallander pushed Martinsson to drive much faster than that. Forty minutes later, they were hurrying along the brick walkways towards a campus security officer who was gesturing towards a second story window in one of the school's older buildings. "He's upstairs. We've cleared the building. He's stayed in the one classroom; most of the students got out, but we figure there are about 20 of them left in there with him."

"These the ones who got out?" Wallander gestured towards a few of the young people huddled against the wall. The campus officer nodded, and Wallander walked over to the students. "Well? What happened?"

The students were still frightened, and they all spoke at once:

"He came in with our professor. He sat in the back."

"She started to lecture."

"No, she was writing on the board."

"He stood up and started shouting in English…"

"He had a gun. Where did he get a gun?"

"She was trying to calm him down. She distracted him so we could escape."

Kurt cupped his cheek in his hand. "What's your professor's name?"

"It's Dr. Vogel."

"What class is this?" Wallander needed to confirm his suspicions.

"Latin for the Sciences. It sounds boring, but she's actually a really interesting teacher."

Wallander nodded and gestured to Martinsson. "It's Schober." He turned back to the students to find out the room number, grabbed a radio from the campus officer, and the two men headed into the building.

Martinsson filled Wallander in on what he'd found out. "Apparently he stole the gun from the security guard's desk."

Wallander nodded. "Just remember, we've got Kelly on the inside. You've seen her manage him. That should help."

There were two doors to the classroom, one at each end of the room, and both had frosted glass panes in them. Wallander could see that there were several large windows in the opposite wall, and he could guess that the room was fitted with long tables instead of individual desks; he could make out some motion between the tables, as though students were ducking beneath them. He thought he was looking through the door at the back of the classroom. Martinsson, who was peering through the window in the other door, gestured to him, and they met in the middle.

"It looks like Schober is on this end of the room," Martinsson gestured.

"So, we enter at the back, try to get the students out." Wallander said. "Then we deal with Schober."

"But what about…" Wallander cut Martinsson off with a gesture; both men drew their guns and paused at the door. Wallander glanced back at Martinsson, who nodded. They burst through the door.

Wallander sized up the situation quickly. As he walked slowly towards the front of the lecture hall, Martinsson gestured to the students to leave through the door he was guarding, gun drawn. At the front of the classroom, Kelly sat in the chair behind the teacher's desk, with her books stacked neatly in front of her; Schober was behind her, with the security guard's gun pointed at her. Her eyes followed her students as they ran from the room; when she looked at Martinsson and Wallander, they could see how grateful she was that her students were safe. Schober was yelling, "You guys thought you could beat me, huh? Three days of jello and quiet, then you hide all the dangerous things at my Auntie's house, and you think I'll be OK?"

Wallander let his arm drop his side, while Martinsson kept his gun trained on Schober. Wallander continued to walk slowly, and when he spoke, he kept his voice quiet and calm. "Now, Mike, nobody's trying to beat you at anything. We just don't want anyone to get hurt."

Wallander's glance rested briefly on Kelly's face. Her eyes were wide, but other than that, she seemed entirely calm. "You don't want to hurt anybody, do you, Mike?"

The last student left the room, and Martinsson, gun still drawn, began to move steadily down the aisle on the other side of the classroom.

Schober was talking to his Aunt now. "So, Aunt Kelly, if I shoot the old cop, the one you've got a crush on, do you think his sidekick will shoot me? You know, my mom always figured you were gay; she'd be thrilled if you showed up at my funeral with a Swedish cop. Why did you go for the old guy and not the cute young one, anyway? You underestimate yourself, Auntie."

He glanced at the two men, trying to measure how much they were understanding. "Maybe I'll shoot you," he said, lifting the gun to aim at his aunt's head, "And then the old cop will shoot me. Maybe he likes you, too."

At that, Wallander lifted his weapon and leveled it at Schober, who smiled nervously. "So you do understand me. Good."

Wallander and Martinsson had been walking slowly towards the front of the classroom while he spoke; as they reached the front of the room, all three men froze. It was silent in the room; outside they could hear the distant sound of sirens and emergency vehicles, but that all seemed to belong to another world. Their world was simple and small: four people and three guns.

Schober glanced between the two policemen; he didn't know what to do next, and his gun wavered. He was tiring. Kelly caught the motion out of the corner of her eye; she glanced at Wallander and Martinsson, then placed her hands on the edge of the desk, and shoved her chair back, hard, into Schober, knocking him off balance. She grabbed the textbook off the desk in front of her and spun, swinging for her nephew. She had caught him off guard; as he staggered backwards, his gun went off. She fell onto the desk, and Martinsson lunged at Schober while Wallander moved towards Kelly. He could see that she was hurt; he made her lie still while he tried to find her wound. She murmured, "Kurt? Are you hurt? You've got blood on..."

Kurt tried to calm her. The blood was hers, not his. "Shh. I'm fine. You need to lie still now. "

Martinsson was on the floor, grappling with Schober, who was cursing and calling for his aunt. Wallander fumbled in his pocket for the radio and called for backup; within moments the room was filled with paramedics and uniformed officers, and Wallander and Martinsson backed away to let them work.


	9. Chapter 9

Kurt visited Kelly in the hospital. She was asleep, and he brushed her hair out of her face and sat for a long while and watched her. He noticed the silver in her hair. He liked that she didn't color it, how it caught the light. She muttered in Latin; he couldn't make out any of it.

A few days later, he returned to the hospital, but she had already checked out. He drove out to her farm; when he arrived, he heard music coming from the barn, so he followed the sound. There she was, more or less as he'd once imagined her, curled up with a blanket in her easy chair, books and papers on her lap. He hadn't imagined her arm in the sling, though. She looked up when he came in the door. "Kurt!"

"I visited you in the hospital, but you were asleep."

"Apparently I did a lot of that while I was there. Too many painkillers. I can think more clearly here." Her smile was wan. She moved a few papers off a kitchen chair she'd pulled up for a desk, and he sat down and took her hand, automatically, as he had in the hospital. When she moved, he caught a glimpse of her bandaged clavicle under her loosely-buttoned shirt.

"You talked in your sleep." She raised her eyebrows at that. "It was all in Latin. I couldn't follow it." She smiled again. "Look, are you sure you should have left the hospital so soon?"

Kelly was adamant. "I missed my classes today. I have to meet with the department chair and the academic vice president and the university president tomorrow before they'll let me come back, and I don't want to cancel classes again on Thursday." Kelly could see that this confused him. "Kurt, I brought a man into my class who threatened my students with a gun and disrupted the entire University. "

"They won't fire you over this, will they?" Kurt had read the reports and witness statements; her students had all praised her calm management of the situation. His report would do the same.

She shook her head. "It's unlikely. I have tenure, and every year or two Uppsala tries to steal me away. I'm too valuable to them. They just need to reinstate order, and make sure that I know my place. They'll probably punish me with extra committee assignments, some kind of training program, withdraw the leave they'd approved for next Fall. But they won't fire me."

"The prosecutor says you aren't pressing charges," Kurt stated the fact, rather than asking the question.

She shrugged, then winced as her injured shoulder reacted to the movement. "I don't put much stock in what your prosecutor thinks. He thought it was a good idea for Mike to go to campus with me."

Kurt had to smile at that, because he agreed with her. "Well, he's temporary. But he has a point; Schober did shoot you, and he's made trouble for you at work."

"And the prosecutor has enough evidence without my filing a complaint. Mike will wind up in some sort of therapeutic prison ward for a while, then he'll be deported back home. Who knows? It might even do him some good. I just want to… restore order here."

They sat quietly for a few moments, listening to the music, looking at the plants. "How are your plants doing, anyway?" Kurt asked.

"They're all right. Magnus came and watered them for me while I was in the hospital. He overdid it a little on the _Carnegiea gigantea_, but they're hardy. That one's going to have to move to a greenhouse soon, anyway."

He nodded. He had no idea what a _Carnegiea gigantea_ was, but she'd gestured towards the large cactus, so he didn't feel the need to ask anything else.

Kurt cleared his throat and looked down at her hand in his, as though he'd just realized it was there, but he said nothing. Kelly broke the silence this time. "Kurt, look, none of this is your fault."

_Yes, it is. _He couldn't share her precarious order, but she had a better chance of preserving it without him.

He looked up at her; their eyes met, and he tilted his head apologetically and patted her hand before he stood and walked away.

Wallander's cell phone was buzzing at him, calling him to another crime scene, before he was even back to his car.


End file.
